


There is Thunder in Our Hearts

by indevan



Series: Running Up That Hill [2]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Getting Together, Insomnia, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-12 03:25:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13538667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Time duty wasn’t too bad.  It was dreary, mindless work, but Trunks didn’t mind it.  It meant that history was fine, everything was where it should be, and he got to work with Goten.  A Goten he could actually get to know as his partner and a person.  He was funny, sweet, and still kind despite everything he suffered.  He didn’t speak of his own timeline but if it was anything like Trunks’s, he could see why he wouldn’t want to





	There is Thunder in Our Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> a continuation from where ["See How Deep the Bullet Lies"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13309833) left off

Time duty wasn’t too bad.  It was dreary, mindless work, but Trunks didn’t mind it.  It meant that history was fine, everything was where it should be, and he got to work with Goten.  A Goten he could actually get to know as his partner and a person.  He was funny, sweet, and still kind despite everything he suffered.  He didn’t speak of his own timeline but if it was anything like Trunks’s, he could see why he wouldn’t want to.

Today he walked into the time library (he often wondered why they _had_ to put “time” in front of everything when it should be understood) to see that Goten had passed on his leather duster and was wearing a thickly knit, oversized cardigan.

“Looking to be comfortable?”

Trunks was never sure if he was flirting with Goten or not.  All of this was new to him, but his heart soared whenever he got a smile out of him.

“Something like that.” Goten grinned. “It gets cold in here, y’know?  And this was my brother’s.”

Something in him still hurt when he thought about Gohan and it had to be the same for him.  But how could he bring it up?

“He liked sweaters?”

_Nailed it._

To his relief, Goten laughed and rifled a hand through his short hair.  The Goten in the main timeline--the one married to his counterpart--had longer hair.  Thinking of them as the same person was just as weird of thinking of his counterpart as one to him.  It was headache-inducing to dwell on it for too long.

“I mean, he always wore nerd stuff like this,” he said, “to his lectures and at the university and it was always too big on him like he was trying to hide himself.  Like Clark Kent or something.”

Trunks nodded like he knew who that was.

“His glasses, too--he didn’t actually need them to see.” Goten laughed and then his face fell, his expression becoming withdrawn.

Not sure what else to do, Trunks put a hand on his shoulder in a manner that he hoped was comforting.

“You knew a version of him, too, right?” he asked.

Trunks nodded, his mind going back to Gohan.  His first love he hadn’t been aware of.  The sure way he stood, straight-backed and looking forward.  The sharp lines of his face and the way his scar seemed to highlight it.  The rich sound of his voice and how, when he spoke, Trunks felt like everything would be alright.

“Yeah,” he said finally.

The smile Goten gave him then was a bit odd like he had forgotten how, which was absurd considering how often he saw him smiling.  He blinked and the moment passed.  Goten gestured to the stack of scrolls in front of them.

“So wanna help me look over these and make sure no one’s meddling with history?”

“Well, I’m here so there shouldn’t be anyone.”

Goten laughed--a marvelous sound--and Trunks felt himself smile.  He liked whenever he got Goten to laugh.  He laughed with his whole body, like it was growing accustomed to it again after a long time.

“You’ve got a point.”

\--

He shared quarters with Goten since he was staying with him only temporarily.  He was certain whenever his punishment was over and he was free to return home, Goten would get his room back, but for now he appreciated the company.  He missed Mai and the sure sound of her breathing at night, the closeness of her.  It wasn’t the closeness he had thought it had been but they were family.  They were all they had left of their universe.

Goten’s breathing was similarly comforting--the sound of another human to let him know that he wasn’t alone.  He made these little snuffling noises in his sleep and would rub his nose into the pillow whenever he rolled over.  Sleep still was hard to come by but he could usually ignore the static and doze for a few hours before the nightmares set in.

Tonight he lay on his back watching the ceiling above him.  Now and then he would close his eyes from sheer exhaustion but nothing changed.  Of course coming to terms with his sexuality wouldn’t do anything for his sleep schedule if living in a peaceful universe didn’t.  Now he was gay and traumatized by his life as opposed to simply traumatized.

A whimper came from the bed across the way and Trunks rolled onto his side, staring at the lump under the blankets with worry.  He knew that sound.  He heard it in his mother’s room and across the bed from Mai when a nightmare came.  He never heard himself but he knew the feeling: choked and scared, the icy hand of memory clamping on his spine and making him hot and cold.  Making him awaken, clawing at the air and clutching at his throat.

The blankets shifted and he saw Goten holding his head.  His eyes had long since acclimated to the dark and, according to his father, Saiyans had superior night vision to humans due to their crepuscular nature.  Goten’s face was a grimace of pain.

“N-no,” he forced out between clenched teeth. “Dad!”

Without thinking, Trunks pushed back the blanket and bridged the distance between their beds.  He didn’t want to touch him and startle him out of a nightmare.  He had been on the giving and receiving end of that over the years.  Instead he stood over him, feeling suddenly awkward.  Why didn’t he just stay in bed.

“How could you?” His voice louder, more agitated. “Mom...dad...no!”

Goten shot straight up and Trunks jumped back.  He saw the way his hands grasped the blankets, white-knuckled, and how his chest heaved with each ragged breath he took.

“Goten.”

He turned to him his eyes wide and unfocused as if he were still dreaming.

“Trunks,” he said. “You...you’re dead.  Am I dead, too?”

His voice was faraway but still panicked and Trunks wasn’t sure what to say.

“I’m the other Trunks,” he said. “You’re in the Time Nest.”

“Time...Nest…”

He blinked rapidly and his eyes found his.  He still had the blankets fisted in a grip tight enough to turn coal into diamonds but his breathing had regulated.

“Guess I had a nightmare,” he said, voice shaking. “Sorry.  It all happened so recently, I…”

“You don’t have to apologize--I understand.”

Goten tipped his head to the side. “You do, don’t you?”

He slowly unfurled his hands from the sheets and he flexed his fingers.

“Does it get easier?”

Trunks closed his eyes for a moment.

“Not really.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure.”

They fell into silence again, the air between them charged.  Trunks wasn’t sure how to read it.

“The me in your world is dead?”

“Did I say that?”

He nodded.  Goten lifted his eyes to the ceiling and then back at him.  His fingers were now kneading the blanket nervously.

“Yeah.  You...yeah.” He flattened his palms on the blanket and smoothed it over his legs.  Trunks could see his hands tremble slightly.  He knew that feeling.  Trying to come down from a nightmare when the adrenaline still flooded your veins.  Goten looked back at him and said, “Was there a me in your universe?”

He pictured the Goten from the main timeline with his shaggy hair and in his green scrubs, carrying his children balanced on his biceps.  The way his counterpart rolled his eyes but couldn’t hide the fondness on his face whenever he looked at him.

“No.  Goku--I mean, your dad died before you could be conceived.”

“Bummer.”

They laughed together and it was like salt water on a cut.

“I knew a version of you, though,” he said. “In the timeline I saved, you’re a nurse.”

He didn’t say that he was married to the Trunks of that timeline.  It was probably weird to bring up and would make things awkward between them--knowing that alternate versions of themselves were together.  That wasn’t a regular conversation to have but.  Nothing had ever been regular for him.

“What was it?” Goten asked. “What did your universe in?”

He broached the question so earnestly, so sweetly, that Trunks had to give in and tell him.  He probably just wanted a distraction from his own nightmares and he couldn’t blame him.

So he told him.

The androids and Cell--Black and Zamasu.  Seeing his mother die.  Never meeting his father.  Gohan.  His friendship with Mai.  Dying in the battle against Cell only to reawaken on Kami’s lookout, disoriented and dizzy.

Goten nodded as he spoke, his face schooled into a look of concentration.

“That’s so much,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

He reached out and touched Trunks’s arm and he felt a warm pulse spread through his body.

“It’s alright,” he said, surprised at how strangled his voice sounded.

Talking about it was still strange, like he it happened to someone else, but he felt the ache in his chest, heard it in his words.  It was his and he would carry it with him forever.

“You should get some sleep,” Goten said. “You look tired.”

Not sure what else to do, Trunks nodded.  He went back to his bed and laid under the blankets.  He didn’t hear Goten’s little snuffling sounds and knew that he wasn’t asleep.  He resumed staring at the ceiling.

It didn’t occur to him until he felt himself begin to doze that Goten said nothing about his universe.

\--

Trunks was beginning to suspect that his punishment was simply to be bored.  There were no distortions, no anomalies, just hours of him and Goten looking over the scrolls and putting them back.

Goten was in the cardigan again and it somehow swallowed him, which was astounding to Trunks because he was so broad.  He was definitely taller and bigger than him, at least.

“Hey,” he said and he had his sweet smile on. “Since there was no me in your universe, do you know how to do fusion?”

“Oh.  Uh.  I saw my father do it with Goku.”

That had been incredible but weird.  Weirder still that it apparently wasn’t even the first time it had come to that.  The resulting figure that somehow melded their features into a new person.

“How’d they do it?”

“The Potara earrings.”

 _What other way is there?_ he didn’t ask out loud.

Goten’s dark eyes shone and a sly smile crossed onto his features.

“Then you’ve never seen the fusion dance?”

“The what?”

Goten pushed back his seat and jumped away from the table piled high with scrolls.  Pulling the cardigan tightly around himself, he stood in front of him with his fists proudly on his hips.

“Let me show you.”

With practiced fluidity, Goten moved through what Trunks could only describe as the most ridiculous dance he had ever seen and he had learned the mafuba.

“You’re kidding.”

He shook his head, looking gleeful.

“We match up our movements and when our fingers touch, we fuse.” Goten ruffled his own hair and smiled proudly. “Trunks--that is, my Trunks--him and me would fight like that all the time.”

The casual mention of “my Trunks” filled him with some kind of jealousy that he tried to push away.  He wasn’t even certain on his feelings for Goten and he wasn’t so pathetic that he would be jealous of another version of himself--and a dead one at that.

“Wanna try it?”

He still wasn’t convinced that Goten wasn’t messing with him but he nodded because it was better than looking through the scrolls.  Plus Goten’s smile was infectious and he wanted to keep it there.  The image of him last night, frightened and panting, was still lodged in his mind’s eye.

“Okay.  So mirror me at first, okay?”

Trunks stood in front of him and moved his arms and legs in the weird, sweeping, shuffling dance.

“And while you do it, you have to say...fuuuu-sion-ha!” He ended lunging to the side with his pointed fingers facing the same direction, one arm arched over his head.

“You are one hundred percent fucking with me right now.”

Goten righted himself and shook his head.

“I could not make this up if I tried.  So, you ready to try it?  It only lasts thirty minutes.”

He had nothing to lose and he wanted to get Goten to smile again so he nodded.  Trunks stood next to him and felt his ki.

“It has to be equal,” he said, “but luckily it feels like we’re on the same wavelength already, huh?”

_Oh, Kami…_

Trunks nodded.

“Ready?” Goten had the audacity to wink and he was beginning to suspect that this was overcompensation for allowing Trunks to see him freak out last night.

He could play along and so he nodded again.  It felt strangely natural going through the absurd motions of the dance, hearing his voice and Goten’s speak at the same time.  They finished the “ha!” at the same time and he felt the tip of his finger against his.  A bright light exploded like ten cameras flashing and a warmth spread through his entire body.

Trunks was aware of his own memories but not himself.  He could feel Goten’s thoughts with his own but they were fleeting, like tadpoles darting through a stream.  He felt like both himself and Goten but neither as well.  He was his own person, his own entity.

“Gotenks,” he said out loud in two voices speaking as one.

He touched his face and his hair.  He felt the strange, roomy pants he wore and the short vest.  A mirror, a mirror--he wanted a mirror.

There was several in the scroll archive purely for decorative purposes and he had to fly up to one to see his relfection.  The man who stared back looked oddly like his father.  They were his features but dark brows and darker eyes.  His dopey hairline and high forehead but there was a quirk to his mouth that reminded him of Goten.  His hair was black and purple and stood straight up.

A warm feeling spread through his whole body.  He felt rejuvenated, full of energy in a way he hadn’t in years.

“I feel great!” he cried and did a backflip in midair. “Yes!  Yes!”

He felt weightless and elated.  He didn’t think he could feel this good, not ever.  Gotenks flew back to the ground and stared at the mound of scrolls.

“Boring,” he said, irritated. “I wanna get out--gotta fly.  Ugh, who am I even _talking_ to?”

He was a caged animal, pacing the archive room.  There were no anomalies--what if he _made_ one?  No, no, bad idea.  Trunks felt himself sink further into the purely limbic Gotenks.  It felt good, it felt--natural.

The split came too soon and he ended up on his backside on the hard floor of the archive room.

“What did you think?” Goten propped his chin in his hands and grinned.

“That was...incredible.”

“Isn’t it?” He looked down at his hand, spread wide, and then closed it in a fist. “Fighting as Gotenks...we felt invincible.  Until we weren’t.”

Trunks licked his lips nervously and lifted his face towards his.

“What happened in your universe?”

Goten stared down at his hands, tugging the sleeves of the cardigan over his knuckles.  He didn’t answer at first and Trunks wondered if he heard him, until he spoke.

“I don’t want to say right now,” he said finally.  Lifting his head, he added, “Give me time.  Okay?”

Not sure what else to do, he nodded.

“Okay.”

\--

It was another week before Goten told him.  The week was filled with monotonous work and night spent alternating between sleep and nightmares for them both.  What a pair they made, Trunks thought.  These traumatized men serving some sort of vague purpose in the Time Patrol.

They didn’t fuse again and Trunks missed it--the feeling of weightlessness.  He understood what Goten meant when he said that Gotenks felt invincible.

His punishment was coming to an end and--it was too soon.  Part of him wanted to go home and see Mai in their apartment and figure out their relationship now that they were no longer kidding one another about it being love.  Now that he knew who he was.  He wanted to see her, his best friend, and work on it from there.

And then there was Goten.

It had nothing to do with his counterpart’s husband or even his lingering feelings for Gohan.  This Goten was neither of them.  He was his own entity that Trunks wanted to spend more time with.  He wanted to get to know him inside and out.  He wanted to kiss him down from a nightmare.  He wanted more time.

“I’m going to miss you,” Goten said.

“I still have three days,” he reminded him.

“I know, but still.  I like you,” he said simply. “You’re not like my Trunks was and.  I dunno.  I like it...”

He trailed off, his words petering to nothing and it was back to scrolls.  More than ever Trunks was convinced that this was a bullshit job the Supreme Kai of Time gave them in order to keep Goten’s mind off of his universe’s destruction and in order to give Trunks the most boring punishment ever.

“He was the last one to die,” Goten said. “Trunks, I mean.  We were the only two left.  Everyone else--”

This time, instead of trailing off, he cut himself off abruptly.  His wounds were still fresh--they weren’t scabbed over scars like Trunks’s own trauma.  He reached out a hand and rubbed his shoulder.

“You don’t have to talk about it.”

“You told me about yours, I.  Owe it to you.”

He shook his head. “You don’t owe me anything.”

Goten gave a half-smile towards him, just a crook of his lips, and then he was kissing him.  Trunks widened his eyes in surprise but the kiss...the kiss was good.  The feel of his lips on his, his hands on his shoulders.  They broke apart and Goten met his eyes.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Trunks closed his eyes and moved in to kiss him again.

It felt right, more right than anything else he had done in his life (which, truthfully, wasn’t saying much considering how often he fucked things up), and he wanted to get lost in him.

When Goten pulled back the second time, his hand went to stroke through Trunks’s hair and his entire body reacted.  He practically purred into it, amazed at the sensation.

“But I do want to tell you, okay?” he said. “You aren’t forcing it out of me, I don’t...I don’t even feel obligated, really.  I just want you to know.”

Trunks nodded. “Okay, then.  Tell me.”

Goten settled back and pulled the sleeves of his cardigan--Gohan’s cardigan--over his knuckles once more.

“Everything was fine.  Like, it seemed okay.  The true line of history, the one you were from initially, it was the same as mine until about fifteen years after Majin Buu was defeated, I guess.”

Trunks nodded.  Goten, like him, must have gotten curious about the “main” timeline.  The one the Supreme Kai of Time was so adamant about preserving.

“What happened?”

His lips tingled and he wanted to kiss him again but he held back.  He knew Goten wanted to talk.

“I’m still not sure.  My brother...one day he was his usual, nerdy self and the next…” He squeezed his hands and then released them. “The next, he was a monster.”

Brother...Gohan.   _Gohan_ caused the issues in his world?  Trunks tried to keep his face neutral, to hide his disbelief, but he was certain that he did a poor job of it because Goten gave a hoarse little chuckle.

“Yeah, I know.  It took us all by surprise.  He was the best of us, y’know?  He was who I really looked up to.  My dad saved the world but Gohan was.  He was everything.”

Trunks knew what he meant.  He still remembered Gohan’s death so clearly.  The rain and how everything was dismal and gray.  Seeing him lying there, lifeless, his gi torn and muddied.  The way pain and grief boiled in his blood until he screamed his way into becoming a Super Saiyan.

“He killed his family first...and then Piccolo and my parents.  It was like whatever possessed him wanted to eradicate what was closest to him.” Goten shuddered. “I was able to get out, somehow.  I barely remember how...”

“Possessed?” For some reason, that stuck out in Trunks’s mind.

“Yeah, I.  Still refuse to believe that that was my brother.  It can’t be.  It…”

“He was able to kill Goku?  Your dad?”

Goten nodded. “Took him by surprise.  The rest of us tried to fight him but it amplified his power, whatever it was, said he was going to finally live up to his potential.  Your dad, he...he nearly got him but Gohan distracted him.”

It was so strange hearing about Gohan using underhanded tactics like that.  That wasn’t his mentor nor the one he had known in the main timeline.

“How?”

“He blew up Capsule Corps.”

A memory slithered into his mind.  Black holding his mother, her telling him to run.  Run.  Go.  He shuddered.

“You can stop.”

“No.” Goten shook his head. “It feels good to talk about it to someone else.

“I thought you died, too, but you were okay.  You got out.  And then it was the two of us.  And then it was just me.”

Trunks reached out for his hand and Goten put his in it.  It was trembling again and he was seized with the desire to bring it to his lips.

“I was about to die when the Supreme Kai of Time pulled me out and put me in the Time Patrol.”

“Yeah, she’s good at that.”

Words fell to silence and they sat together, neither making a sound.  Finally, Goten spoke again.

“I saw it all, nearly.  My parents, your dad, Piccolo...Krillin...Yamcha.  You.  All of them.  I still see it at night.”

Goten kissed him again and he realized that the conversation was over.  He held Goten close to his chest, not wanting to let go.  Wanting to take his pain, wanting...wanting…

He deepened the kiss, holding that cardigan--what had to be a memory of what Gohan once was--tight in his hands as he did.

“I’m going to miss you,” Goten murmured into his lips. “Thank you for listening.”

He didn’t know what to say to that so he simply kissed him again.

\--

It was Trunks’s last night.  He knew he would wake up to the Supreme Kai of Time cheerily chirping “You can go!” in that way of hers.  He felt more torn.  He wanted to go back to his little apartment with Mai but he also wanted to stay here with Goten.

He now knew what it was like for his body to be alight with passion, what it felt like to reciprocate to someone else’s hands or mouth.  It wasn’t an exercise in futility or tiresome chore, it was.  It was indescribable.

“I’m not using you as a replacement for my Trunks,” Goten told him. “It’s important that you know that.  He and I weren’t...and you.  You’re your own person and I’m attracted to you for _you,_ okay?”

He nodded, understood.  The thought hadn’t really occurred to him.  He knew the vast difference in the multiple Trunkses, just looking at him and his counterpart.

He kissed Goten lightly and then more deeply.

“You’re leaving tomorrow,” he said with an unhappy sigh. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too.”

Goten rolled onto his side and traced his finger down the line of Trunks’s collarbone.

“Can I come with you?  Will that Mai girl mind?”

Would she?  He didn’t think so except in terms of space.

“Can you?” he asked. “Like, is that allowed?”

“Who knows?  And what do you care?  Isn’t this your punishment?  Isn’t screwing with time, like, your thing?” He let out a laugh.

He had a point.  Goten coming with them wouldn’t cause any harm.  They already avoided their counterparts in this new universe, so what was the harm in another?

It was easier than thinking of life without him.  Three short weeks and he couldn’t get enough.  He wanted to know him more--emotionally, physically.  He wanted him.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“More than anything.”

Goten smiled and pressed their foreheads together.  They lay like that, their bodies touching, their breath mingling, and Trunks felt peace he hadn’t felt in years, maybe ever.  This intimacy, it was incredible.

“This is the happiest I’ve been in a long time,” Goten whispered.

He nodded his agreement, his mind made up.  He couldn’t leave this, couldn’t leave him.

“Come with me,” he said.

“Yeah?” Goten’s face lit up.  Kami, he was beautiful. “Okay.”

He kissed him and his hands began to wander, mapping out Trunks’s body.  He reacted to the touch, arching in towards him.

“We can take it slow, then,” Goten said, his voice low and heavy with want. “We have time now.”

Trunks wasn’t sure why the mention of “time” made him laugh but he did and the result was another winning smile.

\--

Mai stared at him in disbelief.  Her eyes were wide, her brows raised so high that they disappeared into her fringe.  Goten, meanwhile, was spread eagle on the bed, bouncing to admire the mattress.

“Are we sharing?” he asked. “Is this a slumber party?”

“We’ll get another bed,” Trunks told her.

“I’d hope so!”

Mai rubbed her temples and shook her head.

“Only you would finally come to the realization you’re gay, go on some punishment for nearly a month, and come back with a boyfriend.”

She was smiling, though, which meant that Trunks was clearly banking on the fact that people found it hard to stay mad at him.  He was glad, considering the many mistakes he had made in his life.

“The Supreme Kai of Time allowed it as long as he avoids the Goten of this universe.”

Goten bounced up on the bed and gave her a thumbs up.

“Definitely.” He smiled at her. “Thank you for letting me stay here.  Seriously.”

Mai’s cheeks tinted pink and she looked away.

“No problem…”

Goten came up and put his arms around them both.  He seemed better.  Maybe it was being in the real world and not the odd, non-world of the Time Nest and, worse, the archive room.  Maybe it was being around other humans or that they were an item now.  He had no idea, but he was looking forward to finding out, to getting to know him.

“This’ll be great,” he said. “Like a sitcom.  Come and knock on our door…”

He sang the last sentence, which was probably another reference Trunks didn’t get, and finished it with a peck to his lips.

“Yeah,” Mai said, laughing despite herself. “Like a sitcom…”

This was it, wasn’t it?  Happiness.  The happy ending he finally had.  He would be plagued by nightmares possibly forever (all three of them would be, no doubt), and he had scars that would never heal but.  This was close to normalcy.  He could build is friendship with Mai and his relationship with Goten.  They were alive, they were whole.

Trunks looked at them both and couldn’t help it--he laughed, too.

**Author's Note:**

> vertigoats.tumblr.com


End file.
